


Whispers Underwater

by pleasanthell



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 05:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4292853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasanthell/pseuds/pleasanthell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't stop a glance over your shoulder. You're not sure if she's actually asleep or if she's just pretending so it won't be awkward. Either way, you're glad you don't have to say anything. You haven't really had any words for Abby since you started sleeping together in the dead of night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whispers Underwater

You pull your pants up and hop a little on your good leg to get them around your waist. You button them and then sit on the end of the bed to put your brace on. You can't stop a glance over your shoulder. You're not sure if she's actually asleep or if she's just pretending so it won't be awkward. Either way, you're glad you don't have to say anything. You haven't really had any words for Abby since you started sleeping together in the dead of night.

You don't remember exactly how long it's been, but it's been long enough for you to have a routine. Everyone goes to bed about the same time. You slip into Abby's room in the crashed part of the Ark that you all live on when the coast is clear. The sex with her is...unreal. You don't even have words to describe it. Granted you've only ever had sex with three guys before, but Abby is… You don't even know how to describe it. She's gentle and thorough, but she knows just when to be a little rough. She manipulates your body, making you feel things you weren't sure were possible.

So you have mind-blowing sex with her. Then you leave. But lately, it's been getting harder to leave. You want to stay in the bed with her and hold her. You want to kiss her until she falls asleep and then watch over her, making sure her peaceful sleep is uninterrupted.

You shake your head at yourself and put your hair up in a loose ponytail before you stand from the bed. That's dangerous thinking. If you keep wanting to do things like that she may get the wrong idea about what you want from her.

With an unsure breath, you walk out of her room and shuffle out of the Ark to the small cluster of tents belonging to the brave few of you that live in tents outside, or the ones of you who can't stand sleeping in any large metal structure that even remotely resembles the interior of Mount Weather. When you get halfway to your tent, you shove your hands in your pockets and start running. You lay in bed and stare at the ceiling of your red tent. You force your eyes closed and flop over onto your stomach. You miss her hands on your body. You were so sure you could keep this casual. You were pretty successful in your last two friends with benefits things, but Abby's...different.

You wake up from a nightmare just before dawn and know that you can't go back to sleep. You wonder if you'll ever stop having nightmares about being drilled into while you were awake. Or cut into while you were awake. You don't know how, but in your dreams, you swear you can feel the pain all over again.

The chilly morning air is moving around in swirls, sending you quickly from the door of your tent to the fire that Bellamy is sitting at. You shove your hands into your pockets and turn your back toward the fire.

“Morning,” Bellamy offers, turning his palms toward the fire.

You just grunt in return. You bounce on your toes and look at the field that sits in front of the Ark that she's sleeping in, “I gotta figure out how to get a heater running in the Ark.”

“Are you going to move into the Ark when it gets really cold?” Bellamy asked.

“Fuck no,” you answer. You shake out your leg with the brace on it. It aches when it's cold in the morning. You rub your thigh and turn around to face the fire.

Bellamy nods, agreeing with your answer to his question. Then he nods to your leg, “You should get Dr. Griffin to look at that.”

“Yeah,” you answer offhandedly. There are so many reasons why you're not going to do that. You decide to distract yourself with how you're going to heat the Ark and then funnel some of that heat out to the tents. It's been on your back burner for a while, but now it's time to start putting your plan into action.

So you seclude yourself in the mech shop inside of the Ark. You don't mind it though because you built in a window after having to stay there for a few days, some weeks ago. You had to fix some components of the electric fence after a really stupid accident involving some guards and some hallucinogenic nuts that you're pretty sure Octavia snuck them after a brief power battle between them and her and Lincoln over who would be in charge of security. You're kind of regretting the window now that it's cold.

You have sketched out your options and are staring at them when there's a knock on the doorframe that does have a door in it.

You're entirely surprised to see Abby standing there. She smiles non-threateningly, “Bellamy said that I should come look at your leg.”

You glance over at all your sketches and realize that you need to add one that's titled 'How Bellamy Blake Dies'. You stay on your stool and force your shoulders to stay in their relaxed position. You hook your heel on the metal ring near the bottom of the stool and shrug, “It just aches when it's cold.” You can feel the battle in your body to keep your voice nonchalant. You shake your head, “Nothing new.” You do realize that you definitely do need to talk to her anyway. You really don't want to have to do that, but you don't see a choice.

“But,” you swivel on your stool toward the table, “While you're here, I drew up some plans for a heating system.”

She walks over t o you and you hold your breath. She stands really close while looking at the sketches you've made. She places her hands one on top of the other, on the table to look at what you've done. “I was just going to ask you about this. What are our options?”

“Well,” you feel your chest get lighter now that you have something to talk about. You move around some of the sketches and place three of them in front of her, “I can hook up a forced air solar heating system really quickly. The solar panels we salvaged from this part of the Ark should be able to handle it. The only problem with that is that we don't know how much sun we're going to have and even if we put the panels on hinges, I don't know that we could turn them enough to get enough energy when it's overcast.” You look up at Abby who is listening intently to you and looking over your sketches. She nods, when she's done absorbing what you said as a cue for you to go on.

You bring another sketch to her attention, “We could have a wood burning furnace. It would take a little longer to make and since we'd be burning wood we'd have to start cutting down trees and make sure to have a steady supply. Also, we'd all smell like a bonfire all the time.”

She breaks a smile and touches your back briefly before reaching for the last sketch, “Is this a water heater?”

“Yeah,” you nod, picking up a pencil to have something to do with your hands, “Most of the pipes are still intact and there's a broken water tank that I could repair. We would just heat the water and run it through the pipes.”

Abby hums softly, “And then we'd have hot water too?”

You nod.

She looks at the sketches and wistfully adds, “I miss hot water.” She turns fully toward the table. “What do you recommend?”

“The solar panel with either of the other two as a back up,” you turn on your stool toward her. You do take note of her want for hot water, “If we use the hot water system, it'll take longer to get up, but it'll be easier to maintain which would free up my time to get some hot showers running.”

She cocks her head, smile still firmly on her face, “You're a genius.”

You can't help, but smile back at someone you hold in such a sigh esteem, “I know.”

“What do you need to get this done?” She turns fully toward you, her hip leaned again your table.

You pick up a list that you've already started and scan it, “Uh, I think the only thing that I need for the solar heating would be a compressor which I could easily find in the other parts of the Ark. There were a lot of them to recirculate the air and water so at least one of them has to still be in once piece.”

Abby nods, “I'll get a group together and we'll head out in an hour or so.”

“If we could get two compressors, the water heater will go faster too,” you add.

She smiles and nods again, “Noted.” She looks down at your leg and uses her foot to tap your dangling toes, “Are you sure your leg is alright?”

“Yup,” you nod although you're not totally sure. “I'll draw up a few sketches of what the compressor looks like so if anyone else finds them they'll know what to get.”

“Okay,” she taps the table with her hand and then takes a step back, away from you, “I'll meet you at the gate.” She slips out of the room and you drop your head on the table. She is so hot and you are so weak.

When you make your way to the gate with your backpack on, you find that Abby has already assembled a small group. She's talking to one of the guards when she sees you. You hand her the sketches and she passes them out to pairs of people. There are three other landing sites that you know of and there are five people in front of you. There's a guard, Monty, Bellamy, and Harper. You're kind of relieved that most of the people going are part of the original hundred. It's easier for you to explain things to them.

All you have to do is tell Monty you need a compressor and he knows what you're talking about. Harper was from Hydro station so she knows what she's looking for too. She might actually be really helpful later on when you get to the water unit together.

You notice that Bellamy has a gun over his shoulder and the guard going with Monty is carrying one as well. Abby accepts gun from Kane who walks over to see you off. It's a handgun and very reminiscent of Clarke's weapon of choice.

You're quiet most of the walk away from Camp Jaha and into the woods. You think a lot about Clarke. You wonder where she is and why she left. Bellamy told you why, but you think maybe she had a score to settle with the Commander that she didn't want anyone else involved in.

Abby is just as quiet and you wonder if she's thinking about Clarke too.

You barely say anything to each other by the time you get to the fractured part of the Mecha station that is laying next to a beautiful lake. You never really got to see how it made it to the ground. It actually looks really well preserved. “It must have been all the blast shields.”

“Huh?” Abby asks.

You realize that you're talking out loud. “Oh, I was just thinking that it looks really preserved and it's probably because of all the blast shields. The testing rooms were all on the exterior and were all reinforced when they put the Ark together. It was supposed to be used for propulsion testing, but I don't know that that ever happened. It would have been cool though.”

“How come you never applied for the engineering program?” Abby asks, as you use a boulder to step onto the top of the Mecha station.

You hold your hand out to Abby and she takes it hopping from the rock to the piece of the Ark that's under your feet, “People from Mecha don't get picked for the engineering program.”

Abby stops next to you. She furrows her brow, “Everyone is supposed to have an equal chance for every program.”

“Yeah?” you quirk your eyebrow, “How many people from Mecha or Factory did you ever see come through the medical program?” She looks stunned and you put your hands on your backpack straps and move to the hatch on top of the Mecha station, “Besides, it's hard to find time to study for something like that when you're not even sure when you're going to eat next.” You heave open the hatch and look down inside. It's a small hold in a large hunk of metal that you wish had more windows.

“I didn't know,” Abby quietly tells you, moving toward you.

“Most people in Alpha Station didn't,” you say offhandedly trying to psyche yourself up to go into the large metal box.

Finally you put your foot on the top rung of the ladder. When you get to the bottom you find yourself standing on the floor of your old home. You bounce on the balls of your feet, not quite sure why standing there is tripping you out.

You make sure that Abby makes it down okay and then take out a flashlight. It's dark. The impact of the collision on Earth drove the Mecha station into the ground, blocking out all the sparse windows. You feel her grab onto your backpack to stay close. Maybe she's a little scared. You don't blame her. You reach behind yourself and find the wrist of her hand that's holding onto your backpack. She releases your backpack and you hold her hand, finding immense comfort in it.

You swallow and find yourself suddenly very warm. You clear your throat and keep walking through the familiar hallways with her hand in yours, “Did you know a few years ago they moved the walls around in Mecha to make the rooms smaller so that they could fit another machine shop down here?”

“No, I didn't know that,” Abby answers, slipping her fingers between yours to hold you hand a little firmer.

You keep talking because it seems to make her feel better, “The old mechanics used to tell stories about how right after it happened, they would walk into the wrong rooms sometimes.”

“Did you hang out with old mechanics often?” Abby asks quietly, like she's scared someone else will hear.

“Yes,” you answer, “Old mechanics, Finn, prostitutes, and black market dealers.”

“You had some interesting friends,” she tells you as you turn a corner. You spot a familiar panel housed in the ceiling above you.

You hand her the flashlight and push on the panel. It doesn't seem to want to move, “Sure did.” You look over your shoulder with a smile, “You did a little black market trading yourself though.”

She smiles, “Just the once.”

“It'll be our little secret,” you tell her but when you turn back to the panel, you realize that you also have another little secret that happens nightly in her bed.

You grab onto a pipe against the wall and put your foot on the wall to heave yourself up toward the ceiling. You punch open a panel and grab another pipe on the other side of the hatch you just exposed to pull yourself up. You sit just inside the maintenance shaft and look down at Abby. She looks down both sides of the darkened hallway. You hold out your hand, “I'll hold the flashlight while you climb up.”

She hands you the flashlight and she climbs up like you did, sitting on the other side of the opening. She looks around, “I've never been in a maintenance shaft before.”

“It's fun,” you smile and gesture her to start moving behind herself. “I used to spend a lot of time up here. Once we get a few meters that way, we'll be able to stand.”

She turns around and starts crawling away from you. You move to follow her. You try to not enjoy the view too much. You can remember what her ass feels like under her hands and you…

She stops in front of you and you almost actually run into her. You look up past her and see her looking at something on the wall. You follow her eyes and see her looking at a spot on the wall. You can't see what she's looking at so you ask, “Abby?”

“Sorry,” she sits down against the opposite wall that she's looking. She points to a space on the wall and you move forward to see, “They're constellations.”

“Oh yeah,” you see what she's looking that, “It was what I could see out of the window in Finn's room. I didn't have windows in my room and sometimes when my mom was gone, I would stay with him.” You keep moving past Abby so you can lead the way.

“What about this?” Abby asks.

You stop and turn around, sitting down so that you can turn easier. You see that Abby is holding a necklace. You never thought that you were going to see what she was holding again. “Where did you get that?”

“It was behind the pipe,” she offers it to you, “Is it yours?”

It's a necklace with a ring on it. It was a bolt that was shaved down to a wedding ring. You take the ring and hold it between your fingers, “It was my dad's before he got floated.” You swallow and hand the necklace back to Abby. Then you turn around and start crawling away.

“Don't you want it?” she asks.

“He got floated for murder,” you don't stop moving.

You can feel the dense silence behind you. You can't help, but feel Abby is finding out some very unsavory things about you. You're afraid that she'll find out something that she finds absolutely irredeemable and never want anything to do with you. That thought terrifies you.

You get to the place where you can stand and hop to your feet. You wait for Abby and offer her your hand. She takes it and lets you help her up.

You're quiet as you make your way to the first place an air compressor should be. You find that it's broken, but assure Abby that there are many more chances to find a close to functioning one. You walk farther down the maintenance shaft, drop out of a hatch into the hallway, and then end up in one of the machine shops.

You set Abby to looking through a bin of old parts with a sketch that you made of the part you need in one hand and a spare flashlight in the other. Then you move around a broken furnace to a metal wall with something special in it. You turn around and place your hand on the furnace then kick your left foot back, striking the wall in the perfect place. The false wall falls out onto the ground with a loud bang.

“Raven?” Abby immediately calls. You can hear her running toward you.

You try to stop her from seeing the super secret stash of contraband that the other mechanics kept for emergencies. “I'm fine.”

But she's already next to you. You finally give up on trying to salvage your pre-Earth image for her and drop to your knees, handing her your flashlight to hold. She watches you silently pull out a watch, a handful of jewelry, some wire, a small pouch of pills, and an open box of old parts.

Abby immediately reaches down and digs something out of the bottom of the box. “Is this it?”

You look up at her and stand up quickly. You take it from her and look it over, “This is it.”

She smiles, “Good.” Then her eyes turn to the illegal things you pulled out of the wall. Suddenly, you are very ashamed at knowing where a working air compressor was because Abby was part of the counsel that enforced that laws that would have floated everyone that knew about it.

She bends down and picks up the pills. She looks them over and pockets the pouch, “These will be helpful later on.”

You take her flashlight back and stuff the compressor into your backpack. You look at Abby again to see if you can find a look of disapproval or something like it on her face. You find that she's just watching you intently, waiting on you to be ready to leave.

Your thoughts trail off when you hear a low rumbling noise. Your instinct is to reach out for Abby and you grab onto her jacket. You whisper, “Please tell me that didn't sound like a bear to you.”

“We have to leave,” Abby whispers back urgently, listening for sounds, “I think the way we came in is probably safe.”

You hold your hand out to her as you start walking and she grabs it. You lead the way because you have the flashlight, you know where you're going, and you'll be damned if anything happens to Abby.

You both move as quietly as you can, occasionally hearing the low rumble of a bear growl or a distant banging sound. Your forearms feel weak and it feels like you're using all of your strength to hold onto Abby's hand.

When you get to the first section of maintenance shaft that you have to crawl through, you hop up quickly and help Abby up. You might be crawling faster if you didn't keep stopping to make sure Abby was behind you. You keep listening as you crawl, but Mecha has grown terrifyingly quiet. Your clammy palms tremble as you crawl. You go over everything you know about bears which isn't a whole lot. Earth Skills was definitely not your best subject in school. You were sure that you'd never see the ground and as a zero-G mechanic, you weren't sure you'd ever want to go to the ground. If it wasn't for Finn, they would have had to drag you kicking and screaming out of the sky.

You shine your flashlight down into the last hallway that you have to drop into and don't see anything. You look behind you at Abby and then dangle your feet into the hole. As you drop, your leg brace catches on the edge of the hatch and it causes you to fall forward with an ungraceful crash. Your backpack, which apparently wasn't fully closed, hits the ground and shotguns everything in the backpack across the hall.

Abby drops next to you gracefully and kneels down to help you up. Suddenly, the hallway that you're in fills with an almost deafening roar. You want to cover your ears, but your hands can't seem to move. Abby steps over you. You can see her chest heaving and her eyes wide with fear. You quickly turn your flashlight around and point it down the hallway. You see that Abby had just stepped between you and a massive brown bear.

You scoop most of your things back into the backpack, making sure to get the air compressor. Then you close your hand around a flare as the bear starts making it's way to you. It's the only thing that feels like it might be able to do some damage. However the damage it can do will probably just piss off the bear.

“Slowly start backing away,” Abby whispers quietly.

You struggle to your feet and realize that your brace slipped in your fall. You limp up and grab onto the back of Abby's shirt when you see that she's not moving with you.

“Go Raven,” Abby quietly tells you. It's an order and one that you're definitely not going to follow.

“I'm not going without you,” you whisper back angrily.

You pull your brace up as best you can, but know that you can't run with it like it is and adjusting it will take too long. You clench your jaw knowing how you can't climb a ladder without it and a ladder is the only way out.

You strike the flare on the wall and listen to it hiss to life. You hold it in front of you and push Abby behind you. You limp backwards. You seem to hold the bear's eyes as it rises as high as it can in the hallway, towering over the both of you. Abby is pulling you backwards and you have to go with her because it would take two legs to stop her.

“We're close,” she whispers in your ear as you both back away.

The bear tilts it's head and then drops to all fours. You don't like that. You can see the light of the open hatch starting to make it's way down the hallway. You must be really close.

Then the bear starts running at you. You wave the flare and try to make it stop, but it only stutter steps before galloping quickly toward you. You instinctively push Abby away from you, farther away from the bear. Your arm moves without your brain thinking about it and you thrust the flare into the eye of the charging bear right before it takes the first swipe at you.

It shrieks and roars in horrible pain. You drop the flare and Abby pulls you hard toward the ladder. She shoves you against it and starts pushing you up. With her help, you get your hands to the outside hatch and hoist yourself out of the Mecha Station. Your first move is to turn around and help Abby out. You can hear the bear running to catch up with the two of you. You hang down into the hole and grab onto the back of Abby's shirt, pulling her up.

She falls onto the top of the Mecha Station and frantically kicks at the hatch that closes it. You heave it closed, able to see the glint of sunlight off of the bear's eyes as it jumps for you. You slam the hatch down in it's face. Abby lunges for the round wheel that locks that hatch. You both turn it together and seal the bear in.

You fall back onto the top of the Mecha Station, trying to rest your racing heart. You lull your head over and look at Abby who is still staring at the hatch, “Are you okay?”

She turns her eyes to you and slowly nods. She looks around, then pushes the hair out of her eyes. “Are you?”

You roll your eyes at yourself and start readjusting your brace so that you can survive the walk back. “Fine.” You shake your head, “Sorry. I just...my brace caught and-”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she stands up and kneels down next to you. She helps you adjust your brace and then helps you to your feet.

As you start to walk, you can hear a metal on metal sound in your backpack. You stop and put your backpack on the ground. When you open it up, your heart sinks. You can see a few small metal parts rattling around in the compressor's casing. It's broken. “Shit.”

“What's wrong?” Abby asks, standing at the edge of the Mecha Station.

You shake the compressor and let her hear the noise. She looks disappointed, but covers it up with a hopeful look, “I'm sure someone else found one.”

“I might be able to fix this one,” you huff and shove it back into your backpack, “I just...” You shake your head again. “I'm so stupid.”

You stand up, shrugging your backpack back on, and Abby walks back toward you. She takes your face in her hands. Her fingers are so gentle, but it makes your heart race. She looks into your eyes, “You are not stupid. It was an accident and do I need to remind you that there was a bear involved? You are one of the most brilliant people I've ever met.”

You breath out softly and nod, indicating that you understand. She smiles at your face and runs her thumb over your cheekbone before dropping contact completely. For a second there, you were sure that she was going to kiss you. You hoped she was going to kiss you.

“We should hurry,” you mention as you both hop back to the boulder that is pressed against the Mecha Station then slide down the other side, “There's no way that that bear got into Mecha through the exterior hatch. There has to be a hole in it somewhere else.”

Abby looks back at the part of the Ark that she landed in and nods, picking up the pace a little.

You walk quietly, your hands angrily gripping your backpack straps. You're so mad at yourself. You finally found a working compressor and you fucking broke it and almost got Abby killed.

“Raven,” Abby gently says your name and you immediately look around for any kind of threat.

You stop walking and see that she's stopped. You quirk an eyebrow, waiting for her to speak.

She puts her hands on her hips, “How can I convince you that it wasn't your fault?”

You look down at your shoes. Then you peer up at her through your eyelashes, “How did you know?”

“I know you,” she smiles sweetly and you just melt. It's pathetic really.

You sigh, “I just...” You shake your head and bite your lip. “It's stupid.” You turn back to the direction you're supposed to be walking in to get back on track so you can maybe fix this compressor if no one else found one.

“So you're going to pout all the way back?” she asks and when you whip your head around to look at her, you can see that she's grinning.

“I was planning on it,” you shove your hands in your pockets. You can't be in a bad mood when she has that look on her face, “C'mon Abby. We've gotta get back.”

She starts walking, but the smile on her face completely obliterates your bad mood. She's like magic.

When you get back to the camp, the other teams are already waiting anxiously near the front gate. You had the closest part of the Ark to go to, but you had a little bit of a bear problem. When Abby explained why you were late, everyone else gets wide-eyed.

You ignore their wonder and ask if anyone found the part. Smiles spread across the group and you're' presented with a heavy canvas bag. You look inside of it and find a handful of air compressors as well as various other salvaged parts that could be helpful.

“This is amazing,” you look up at them, “Thanks guys.”

“There's another bag of stuff that I found over there,” Monty gestured to a larger canvas bag near the front of the gate, “But it's not mechanical stuff.”

Abby turns to look at the bag and you walk to the Mech tent to get started. The sooner the heater is up, the better.

You work for a few hours in the Mech shop, cleaning the salvaged parts, making sure they're in working order, and then tweaking your plans a little bit to include the new parts. You're getting excited, but you're also getting really cold. The Mech shop wasn't insulated to be warm.

You're rubbing your hands together when the plastic flaps over the door part and Abby steps in. She's carrying a canteen and a wooden bowl of a steaming soup. The smell reminds you how hungry you are. Abby sets the soup and the canteen down on a clean spot of the table, “Do you need anything?”

You shake your head, “Not yet. I'm almost ready to start reworking the solar inverters. Monty brought back five perfectly intact capacitors.” You look them over, “I've never seen any like this, but they're super efficient.”

“Meaning?” Abby asks, picking up one of the blue cylindrical devices and looking it over.

“Meaning that we will get way more power out of the solar panels,” you answer, picking up the soup and taking a long sip of it. You immediately know who made it from the first taste. You love it when Lincoln cooks his wild game stew. “Enough to charge that's left of the backup generators so that we can go a few weeks without any sun and be okay.”

She sets down the capacitor and leans her hip on the table, “How's your leg?”

You pause to think about it and realize that there's a dull pain in your leg, “It was fine until you brought it up.” You take another bite of soup.

“Do you mind if I take a look?” Abby gently nudges your bent knee with her thigh.

You can see the worry on her face. You can see her concern for you and it makes your heart jump because it means she cares about you. You swallow, “I would have to take my pants off?”

She nods, her eyes flittering down to your pants then back up to your eyes. She just nods.

You have a feeling you know where your pants off will lead so you lean on the table, but you don't want to make any assumptions. Especially with all the unsavory things she found out about your past today, “If you'll give me a few hours, I'll come by the clinic.”

Abby looks you over, “You can just come to my room.”

You try not to let a smile cross your face. You settle for tiny grin and nod. “Okay.”

She smiles fully, nods, and then walks out.

You decide that construction won't start until tomorrow because you need someone to help you and it sounds like everyone else is asleep. You wonder how long you've been working since Abby left. It's been a while. Your eyes are tired.

You close up the mech shop and make your way down the quiet metal corridor to the Chancellor's room. You don't knock when you open the door.

Abby is sitting at the built in desk in her room, reading a small book. She looks up when you walk in and smiles. You move straight to the bed and sit down on it, feeling more comfortable in this bed, in this room than you did when Abby was in the Mech shop.

You put your hands behind you on the bed and lean back. Abby stands and picks up her book, “I've had this with me since we landed.” She offers it to you, “Jake had a lot of ideas about how to improve the life systems on the Ark, but he never got to put any of them into action.” She clears her throat as you take the book, “All his ideas are in there. I don't know what most of it means, but I think you might. It might help, but it might not.”

You open the book and flip through some of the handwritten notes. You look up at Abby, “I...” but you don't know what to say. You look back at the book and see something that does interest you. You start reading and don't realize that you've been reading for a rude amount of time until you feel Abby starting to take the brace off of your leg.

You start to close the book, but she shakes her head, “Keep reading. I'm going to check your leg.”

You look at her face. She's earnest and you trust her completely. You nod and go back to reading. Jake Griffin was a brilliant engineer. Some of ideas were great, but completely implausible on the Ark. It does give you a few idea on how to do things. A sharp pain in your leg stops your reading.

“I'm sorry,” Abby apologizes. She stands up and offers you her hands, “You have to take your pants off.”

You don't think twice about taking her hand and standing up. You unbuckle your pants with one hand and let them drop to the floor before sitting back down and resuming reading.

Abby pokes and prods at your leg while you read her dead husband's journal. You finally get to the last page of the journal and see a plan to hack into the Ark's communication grid. You close the book and see Abby focusing really intently on massaging the muscle of your leg. She hits a sore spot and you wince.

“I'm sorry,” she apologizes again. She looks up at you. “Can you lay down on the bed?”

You nod and move up the bed to lay your head on Abby's pillows. Abby gets on her knees on the bed and picks up your leg. She pushes your leg up toward the ceiling and stretches the muscles in the back of your leg. You grit your teeth, “Why do you hate me?”

She smiles and releases the stretch. “I don't hate you.”

She moves your leg in a circular motion and then places her hand on your hip to better guide your leg. You look at the ceiling, “Jake had some good ideas. We can use some of them here on the ground given enough materials.”

“I'm glad you found some interesting things,” she seems more focused on your body than your words.

You think back to what was in the book, “It looked like he made some necklaces.”

“Clarke gave me one for Christmas once,” Abby smiles.

The mention of Christmas does absolutely nothing to lighten your barely elevated mood. The only person that ever used to give you Christmas gifts is dead. “You know what I don't get?” You put your hands over your head, “Why does everyone have to wait for a special day to give gifts to the people they love? Why can't they do it all the time if the gifts mean that much?”

Abby tilts her head in thought as she bends your knee, “That's a good point.”

“Are we going to do Christmas here?” you sigh.

“Yes,” Abby's hands distract you a little as they move against your skin. They're soft and smooth as they easily move across your legs. “It's good for morale.” She puts your leg down. “How does that feel?”

You sit up and then stand. You hop a little and then move your leg, “A lot better. Thank you.”

She just smiles at you.

You sit back down on the bed and look at her. You don't know what to do. Usually when you go to her room, you skip right to the sex and talking is for the work the two of you have to do to keep the Sky People alive.

You let your instincts override you. You lean toward her and carefully brush your lips against hers. You can immediately feel her hand on your upper arm. She squeezes gently then just holds her hand there while she kisses you back.

“It's cold outside,” she murmurs against your lips. “You should sleep here tonight.”

You only stumble in the kiss for a beat at the mention of staying the night. She doesn't seem to notice so you put your hand on the back and gently guide her into laying on the bed. You both scoot up the bed so that her head is on the single pillow she's allowed to have.

You move back over her and hold yourself over her, looking down. A knot ties up your stomach when you look at her. Her hair is laying haphazardly around her. Her eyes are sharp and studying you. When her hand touches your face, you know that you love her. You don't have a lot of experience with love. You certainly don't have any good experiences. It scares you.

So after bring her to orgasm a few times, she falls asleep, and you slip out of the room with your boots in your hand. She's amazing. She's perfect. She's too perfect for you. You fall asleep thinking that over and over. The bear visits you in your dreams and attacks Abby. You flop back on your bed. Just what you need – more things to have nightmares about.

You get dressed and head out. There are more people milling around than usual when you wake up. You must have slept longer than you thought. You spot Abby across the camp, talking to Kane. He smiles charmingly at her and you feel stick to your stomach. You decide to head straight to the mech shop and forgo breakfast.

You spend as little time in the shop as possible because that is usually where Abby finds you. You put all your stuff in your backpack and carefully crawl up the Ark to the solar panels that you and Monty salvaged and positioned at the highest piece of crashed Ark that you could put them on without the twisted metal crumbling under their weight.

You spend the better part of the day high above the rest of the people on the Ark. The few glances you get of the nature around you are stunning, but you're too embittered to really take it in. You keep muttering to yourself how Kane is probably a better match for Abby. He's handsome and smart and from the same Station as her. He's been around her for longer. He probably knows her better. If he was dating Abby when Clarke came back, Clarke probably wouldn't have an aneurysm like you have pictured her doing so many times when she comes back and find she you're sleeping with her mom. That usually makes you laugh yourself silly.

It's not funny anymore though. You angrily wipe pathetic tears off of your face with your fist and mutter, “Stupid,” to yourself, your feelings, and the world around you.

“Raven?” you hear your name being called from below.

You're relieved that it's Bellamy's voice and not Abby's. You look down the shaft that you had to crawl up and see that he's halfway up. You wait for him and he pops up a few second later with a backpack. He sits down next to the solar panels, letting his feet dangle in the makeshift maintenance shaft you had to cut through and carve a ladder into.

“The Chancellor told me to bring you this,” he opens the backpack and extracts a piece of bread and some dried meat. Then he sets a canteen on the ground.

You accept the food. You look over the small loaf of bread, “How does Monty even do this?'

“I have no idea,” Bellamy shakes his head. He leans back on his hands and looks around at the view that you've been mostly ignoring, “It's nice up here.”

“It's cold as fuck,” you take a bite of the bread. The wind gets stronger the higher up you get and you're pretty high.

He smiles, “Yeah. Do you need another jacket?”

You shake your head, “I'm good when I'm working.”

“Do you need anything?” he asks.

You shake your head. You've replaced the capacitors. You've rewired the solar panels for the most efficient energy storage. You just have a few more hours of work and then the interior of the Ark will have heat. “Actually,” you think of something Bellamy can help with. “We're going to have to run some old ducts out to the tents for heat. I redirected one of the vents so that I can hook the duct into it next to the main doors of the Ark. Do you think you can get the ducts from the Mech Shop, hook them up and figure out how to get them into the tents?”

“I think I can figure it out,” Bellamy nods with a grin.

“Thanks Bell,” you say as he starts to descend the ladder.

He pauses with his head sticking out of the vertical shaft, “Should I tell the Chancellor?”

“If you want,” you try your best to be nonchalant at the mention of Abby, “If you can find her or whatever.” You turn your eyes to your backpack because that was way too forced.

“It won't be hard,” Bellamy starts descending again, “She's been in the Mech Shop all day.”

“What?” you whip your head around and see that Bellamy is almost a quarter of the way down the ladder, “Why?” You lean over to peer down the ladder shaft.

Bellamy doesn't look up when he answers, “No idea.”

You sit back with a frown. You wonder what Abby's been doing in your Mech Shop all day. You try not to think about it after you eat and get back to work. But your thoughts are on her completely. You think about the look on her face before you kissed her last night. You think about the look on her face after you two just escaped the bear. You can feel your caring for her swimming through your entire body. You don't want to think about what that means. You don't want to love anyone because it never, ever ends well for you.

It takes you a little longer than expected to finish everything up because your thoughts were not one hundred percent on your work. Everything is perfect when you're done near the solar panels, but when you bury yourself in the furnace room near the back of the livable part of the Ark, you send Bellamy and some other people around the Ark to make sure there aren't going to be any heat leaks.

Once everything is sealed, you're working in the furnace room with small audience. You don't care. You're halfway into the furnace making sure everything is good before you turn it on so you don't have to look at anyone in the room. The last thing you need is for the Ark to burn down because you didn't secure all the right wires.

You briefly remember the broken water tank on the other side of the wall. You saw it when you were crawling down the exposed maintenance shaft from the solar panels. You're going to have to catch a lot of water for that thing to start working. You exhale and refocus. One thing at a time.

When you're satisfied, you sit up and realize that Abby is in the room, standing closest to you. You stand up, deciding that you have to face her sooner or later. You gesture to the control panel attached to the front of the furnace, “You want to do the honors, Chancellor?”

She looks slightly confused at her. It's probably because you've never addressed her as The Chancellor. She's always been Abby to you. She's been a woman desperate to get to her daughter and protect her daughter. She's been a woman of her people and someone you've trusted with everything. She's beautiful. She's brilliant. She's funny and kind. You love her and it tears your heart apart.

She shakes her head, “This is your victory.” She gestures to the panel.

You look around the room and see all eyes on you. It makes you uncomfortable. You feel like you're supposed to say something. All you can manage is a whispered, “Please don't let this blow up,” before you flip the switch. There's a rumble and the a whoosh. You turn the dial down a little bit and shrug to the crowd, “It's on.”

There's a cheer. Some of the younger Arkers run out of the room to see if it's reached other parts of the Ark. Other people wander out to see if their rooms are heated. Soon, the only people left in the room are you, Abby, Kane, and Bellamy.

“This is amazing work you've done, Raven,” Kane nods to you.

You kind of awkwardly nod back. You turn to Abby for help on instinct and she puts her hand on your arm, turning to the men with you, “I bet Raven is hungry and tired.”

Abby regally leads the way out of the furnace room. You follow her because you know you have to. You end up in what used to be a classroom. The tables were salvaged as best they could be and were made into an eating area. There are only a few people in the area. You can hear your friends running around the Ark whooping about the heat. You can hear the call of “I'm so warm!” from Miller down the hallway.

You can actually start to feel your hands again by the time you're sitting with a bowl of soup in front of you. Bellamy suggests that you take a break for a little while, but you tell him that you have to get the hot water up and running as soon as possible. It'll take a little more time, but it'll be worth it.

“Wow, so like a hot shower?” Bellamy asks with a wide grin on his face.

You nod, “That's the plan.”

“You know Harper used to live in Hydro right?” he asks.

You take a big bite of your soup, “Yeah. I'm going to need her help.” You wipe your chin with the back of your hand.

“Maybe you should take the day off tomorrow,” Abby suggests, “You've been working all day.”

You purposefully avoid her eyes, by staring right into your soup, “I'm fine.”

“Hey,” a voice calls into the room, “There's like a leak in the heat going out to my tent.”

You jump at the excuse to leave and thank everyone for dinner. It turns out the leak wasn't all that bad and you fixed it with tape. When you step into your own tent, you find it exceptionally warm, but not too hot. It's nice and you peel your shirt off, tossing it aside. You're just going to go to sleep and pretend you haven't been stewing in your own jealousy all day.

As you're unbuttoning your pants, you see something on the pillow of your bed. It's silver and you have to lean close to it to see what it is in the darkened tent. You can see that it's the zero-G wings off of a flight suit. It's amateurishly welded to two thin strips of metal to form loops around a silver necklace chain. You pick up the piece of paper it was resting on and read it.

_Raven,_

_You're right about not needing to have a reason to give gifts to the people we love. Merry Not-Christmas. I found the wings in the Mecha Station. I know how much being a zero-G mechanic meant to you. I know it's not the same, but I hope it reminds you of the stars._

_Love,_

_Abby_

You sit down on your bed and look at the necklace in your hand. You feel like an absolute ass. The necklace rests nicely just below your collarbone. You pull your shirt back on, grab your jacket and run back to the Ark.

You don't stop to talk to anyone. You just knock on Abby's door and wait in the hallway.

She calls for you to come in and when you do, she looks at you carefully like if she looks too hard, you might run away. You unzip your jacket and touch your new necklace, “Is this why you were in the mech shop all day?”

“I wouldn't say it was all day,” Abby offers with a small, tentative smile from her chair at her desk.

You don't smile back. You ball your fist around the zero-G wings that used to mean so much to you. “You're...The Chancellor.”

“I am,” Abby nods matter-of-factly. She just sits still, watching you.

“I'm just...” you shrug, “I'm just a mechanic.” You stare hard at the ground until Abby's feet come into view. You look up at her and sigh softly.

She takes your face in her hands and pulls you in for a kiss. The second her lips touch yours, you let go of your necklace and place your hands low on her hips. She kisses you like she meant every word she wrote in the card and her lips make promises beyond the words she wrote.

You pull back before you get lost in her. Her eyes are questioning when you break away, but you have to clear some things up before you can be happy with Abby.

“It doesn't bother you about my parents?” your hand automatically goes to your new necklace, “Or that I'm a criminal who wasted oxygen when we were still in the sky? Or that I-”

“None of that bothers me because none of those things define you, Raven,” she takes your hand that isn't holding onto your necklace. She pulls you to the bed and you both sit down on the end of it. “Does it bother you that I'm the Chancellor?”

“No,” you state. You almost never think of her in that capacity anyway.

“Does it bother you that I'm older than you? Or that I have a daughter close to your age?” she asks and you can see a flash of vulnerability in her face.

You shake your head, “No.”

She looks from your hand to your face, “Does it bother you that, according to the laws on the Ark, I'm a criminal too? If Thelonius hadn't pardoned me, I would have been floated.”

“No,” your answers are clear and you can see what she's getting at. Nothing about Abby bothers you. The things about you bother you. “Are you...sure? About me?”

She doesn't answer with words. She answer with her lips against yours. You melt knowing that she means it. She means it enough to forgo words and show you with her body. She loves you and you love her. That realization hits you like a drop ship.

Your kissing this time doesn't lead to sex. It leads to you laying on her bed with her in your arms. You're softly stroking her hair and lazily kissing her. You have to ask something that's been on your mind for a while, “What about everyone else?”

“What do you mean?” Abby asks moving her head around to place on your shoulder.

“Are we,” you pause, “Are you cool with everyone knowing?”

She tilted her head up to look at you and kisses you, “Of course. Are you?”

“Yeah,” you grin, kissing her back. “I just wanted to make sure. You are the Chancellor.”

“And you're the most brilliant person here,” she gently runs her fingers over your cheek. She smiles at you, “No one would be alive on the ground if it weren't for you.”

You start to argue with her, but on some level, you know that it's true. You fixed the radio. You talked Clarke through setting off the rockets that fried the grounders that were trying to kill you. You set up the electric fence. You made a heater out of spare parts. You just want to do your best at what you love. You love working with your hands.

And you love Abby. You want to make her happy.

You both fall asleep happy in her bed, just holding each other.

The sound of thunder punches you out of sleep. You jump out of the bed. Your hands are shaking and you feel like you can't breathe. You lean back against the wall and Abby is quickly out of the bed, standing in front of you. She places her hands on your neck, “Raven, it's okay. Breathe. Take a deep breath.”

You follow her instructions and inhale as deeply as you can. It doesn't feel like a lot, but when you exhale you feel a little better. Three more breaths and you feel normal again. You wish that would stop happening. You're tired of not sleeping.

You rub your eyes and realize that it's raining outside. You look up at Abby who is still concerned, “I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize,” she kisses you softly and then takes your hand. She pulls you back to the bed and you both lay back down.

You know that it'll take you a while to get back to sleep so you don't try to force it. You stare at the ceiling as you cuddle into Abby. It does feel warm in the Ark and you smile to yourself. You are a genius. Even with the rain beating down on the Ark, it's staying warm.

All of the muscles in your body freeze at once. It's raining. You hop out of the bed, waking Abby again who was probably just getting back to sleep. She starts to get up, but you lean forward across the bed, kissing her back against the pillow. With a smile you pull away, “I'll be right back.”

You don't wait for her to answer. You grab your boots on your way out the door and hop as you pull them on without stopping. You run outside into the rain, ignoring the freezing feel of the water against your skin. You run to your tent and throw everything out of it. Then you kick the supports, snapping them to make it easier for you to separate from the plastic of your tent. All the while, rain is beating down on you and you can barely see from the glow of the single exterior light of the Ark.

“Raven!” Bellamy calls through the pounding of the rain. He's looking out the flap of his tent, not wanting water to get in, “What are you doing!”

“Catching water!” you almost laugh to yourself at how quickly this idea came to you while you were laying in bed with Abby. The smile doesn't leave your face with you ball up your tent as best you can and head back inside the Ark. You run to the back of the Ark where the broken water tank is sitting. There is a single wall between the water tank and your furnace system. You know that you can have it up and running within in an hour. You just have to catch all the water and repair the crack as quickly as you can.

Bellamy, Harper, Miller, and Monty all show up at the entrance of the water room. Harper is the first one to figure out what you're doing. She sends Miller to the Mech Shop to get what you need and then climbs up on top of the water tank with you. When Miller returns, Bellamy and Harper take your tent, cut one side of it and start climbing up the maintenance shaft that leads up to the solar panels.

You get to work immediately welding the water tank back together starting at the bottom. You're sitting on the ground, finishing up a patch of the crack at the bottom of the tank when you hear water start to rush in. You're not sure you're going to be able to keep up with the rising water, but you've always loved a challenge.

There are a few close calls, but when you've finished repairing the water tank, you look up at Harper who is sitting on a rung of the ladder next to the water luge they made out of your tent. You share a smile and watch the water funnel into a small opening on top of the water tank.

She calls up to Bellamy when it's full and he closes the hatch, cutting off the rain. Harper and Bellamy rejoin you and Miller at the base. Miller is removing his welding mask. He did pretty well for someone who learned to weld with twenty seconds of instructions. You had to go over a few of his welds, but for the most part his work was solid.

Hugs and high fives go around. You have the water now. The next thing you need is a system to move it around. You send Harper, Bellamy, and Miller out to start repairing pipes. You know it's the middle of the night, but the freezing rain seemed to have shocked the four of you out of exhaustion.

You're sitting on the ground stripping wires to be spliced together when you feel a weight on your shoulders. You reach up and feel the slick material of your coat. You smile, your eyes making their way up to Abby who is standing behind you. “Was this your sudden stroke of brilliance?”

“Yup,” you watch her sit down next to you. “You can go back to bed. I'll be done in a little while.”

“Are you coming back to bed?' she leans on you, resting her head on your shoulder to watch as you continue what you were doing when she brought you your coat.

“I might have to stay with you for a little while,” you gesture with your pliers up at your tent that's still hanging from the maintenance shaft.

She places a sweet, innocent kiss on your neck, “You can stay with me for as long as you want.”

She sleepily watches you work for a little while until you talk her into going back to bed. She kisses you before standing up. You go back to checking the turbines that are attached to the water tank. You hear her say goodnight to Bellamy as she's walking out.

Bellamy politely replies, “Goodnight, Chancellor.” He leans on the tank and you look up at him to see what he wants. You find a shit-eating grin.

You roll your eyes and get back to work, “Yes, you saw what you saw. Abby and I are together. If you make a big deal out of it, I will blow up your tent.”

His smile turns harmless. “I wasn't going to say anything.”

You go back to doing what you're doing. You can hear a snarky comment hanging over you so you twirl a wrench in your hand, “Just say it.”

“Clarke is going to kill you,” Bellamy chuckles.

You're almost positive that she will at least attempt to kill you. With your luck, she's tracked down Lexa and made the Commander teach her how to fight like a grounder at the very least. At most, she's killed Lexa and taken over the grounder army which she will send after you when she finds out what you do to her mom at night.

“I'm going to have to get Octavia to teach me how to defend myself before she gets back,” you snap the panel back onto the turbine box.

Bellamy helps you to your feet. “The pipes are all good.”

“Awesome,” you put your hands on your hips. “You can go to bed. I still have some reworking to do.”

He hugs you, “Don't work too hard. We've done without hot water this long. A few more days won't hurt.”

But you don't stop until you can see sunlight starting to sneak in the few windows near the front of the Ark. You're slightly delirious when you wander back to Abby's room. She's sitting at her desk when you open to the door. “I thought you were going back to sleep.”

A smile immediately crosses her face, “I did for a little while. Are you taking a break?”

“I'm done,” you motion for her to follow you. You toss your coat onto the bed as she stands. When she gets close enough to you, she takes your hand.

“You're really done?” there's a glee in her voice that excites you.

You pull her through the empty, early morning halls of the Ark. Everyone is asleep when you duck into one of the storage rooms that used to be a living quarters when this giant hunk of metal was it the sky. You pull her past the boxes of supplies, into the bathroom.

“I have to fix the recycle system later, but right now we have a tank full of water,” you explain to her, “It's been heating for about an hour and can take over heating the Ark if the forced air goes out.”

You step to the side and gesture for her to go into the shower. She pulls you into the bathroom and closes the door. There are boxes in the room, but the shower is clear. You roughly cleaned it a few minutes ago, wanting Abby's first hot water experience since she landed on the ground to be sanitary.

She seems hesitant, but when she places her hand on the hot water knob she turns it. There's a creak and a groan before water sputters out of the shower head. She stands away from the spray, letting it run for a little bit and then puts her hand under it. An immediate smile takes over her face and you can't stop a smile. You've been waiting for her reaction to this since you thought up the idea. You knew it would make her so happy and you never wanted anything else.

“It's warm,” she puts both of her hands into the water.

You slide up behind her and slip your arms around her waist. You kiss her neck, “Why don't we take the inaugural shower?”

She hums contently and turns around in your arms. Your shirt is being pulled over your head before she answers. It's an easy, practiced dance taking each other's clothes off. It only takes her two flicks of the wrist for her to get your leg brace off now. You leave your necklace on, sharing a look with Abby that lets her know that the necklace is the most important thing anyone has ever given you and you don't want to ever take it off.

You put your hands low on her bare hips and push her back into the shower first. The look on her face is angelic when she closes her eyes, warm water touching her skin for the first time in months.

She starts to pull you in, but you step forward quickly, capturing her lips under the spray of the water.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Surfacing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4493967) by [madcowmama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madcowmama/pseuds/madcowmama)




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